If Davis had taken cues from FDR, he wouldn't be getting recalled.

[Classical_Liberal]

But they dare not launch the scheme in the USA. Rather, in 1990, one devious little bunch of operators out of Texas, Houston Natural Gas, operating under the alias "Enron," talked an over-the-edge free-market fanatic, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, into licensing the first completely deregulated power plant in the hemisphere. ......


The power elite first moved on England because they knew Americans wouldn't swallow the deregulation snake oil easily. The USA had gotten used to cheap power available at the flick of switch. This was the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1933, caged the man he thought to be the last of the power pirates, Samuel Insull. Wall Street wheeler-dealer Insull creator of the Power Trust, and six decades before Ken Lay, faked account books and ripped off consumers. To frustrate Insull and his ilk, FDR gave us the Federal Power Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act which told electricity companies where to stand and salute. Detailed regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit. The laws banned "power markets" and required companies to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to hike rates

Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we did. Most important, FDR banned political contributions from utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0815-07.htm

Davis allowed Enron to screw California when he didn't have to.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Excuse me but your own article ARGUES AGAINST your post in the matter

Californians have found the solution to the deregulation disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of "pirates" --and now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.

Please explain YOUR logic...Palast explained his quite well.

[Classical_Liberal]

2. Explain how he stood up like FDR.

? They are still fixing prices. Arnold isn't he only person running. There are also some potential Roosevelts in the pack who would really stand up to Enron.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. How about 2001, when he began a very successful conservation program

immediately following the rolling blackouts which demonstrated to the entire nation that Dick Cheney was wrong about conservation being for sissies.
That wasn't much, eh?
Nor was the fact that he and Bill Lockyer used lawsuits to force most companies to renegotiate the contracts signed under duress.

Nor was the support he gave Joe Dunn in conducting investigations which ACTUALLY DISCOVERED The evidence of price-fixing by using the Perot systems program called "darkstar" to inflate the grid thereby creating false shortages.

Nor was his very vocal pursuit of Kenneth Lay which Lockyer (as you may recall unless you only recently began paying attention and armchair jockeying the recall news) took a great deal of shit for as well ( remember Lockyer said he's like to turn Lay into a jailhouse bride?)

Nor was his continued pursuit of this case with lawsuits even after the FERC ruled that fraudulently reached contracts should be upheld.

Nor was his pursuit of the truth after the FERC stated they would NOT consider evidence of fraud when avoiding setting rates.

Now..do you have info that can be forwarded in more than ONE sentence? Do you have a real point?

[Classical_Liberal]

4. I rest my case

He did nothing to stop Enron. No asking for Californians to conserve isn't very much, and does nothing to stop Enron. Whining about Bush cronies on Ferc does nothing either. He could have done what Roosevelt did, and he didn't.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

5. OK is this sarcasm? Am I not getting it?

[Classical_Liberal]

6. Asking Calfornians to conserve does nothing to stop

Enron from screwing thet taxpayers more. It also validates Enron's claims that the shortages were natural. It also doesn't help little old ladies who really needed to turn on their air conditioners. It is like telling people to carry mace in responce to a gang of rapists instead of arresting the rapists.

It is also pretty pathetic in comarison to Roosevelt's responce which was to make

Detailed regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit. The laws banned "power markets" and required companies to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to hike rates

Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we did. Most important, FDR banned political contributions from utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD.

If he had done these things California wouldn't have such a big deficite, and he wouldn't be unpopular and nobody would be trying to recall him. I like Palast but to compare Davis's pathetic responce to Roosevelt doesn't pass the bar, using Palast's own examples.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. Nice analysis but there is this thing called the LAW which Enron can break

but Davis can't. Energy was deregulated by a vote of the assembly/senate. The governor has limited executive powers in that regard. Once property is forfetied as it was in the deregulation scheme, reclaiming it is quite difficult.

What conserving did was alleviate the IMAGINED congestion of the grids (which MANY legislators suspected was rigged but HAD to presume was TRUE when mediating public policy on short notice and providing for a state of 36 million or TWICE the size of IRAQ where the Bushies still can't et the lights on.)thereby pulling the profit OUT of it for the energy companies.

Davis had NO authority STATEWIDE to seize property that is mediated by FEDERAL LAW.

YOur post only indicates a poor understanding of how the law works.

The entire thing could have been IMMEDIATELY rectified if the FERC had MOVED to set rates. They didn't based on IDEOLOGY rather than sound public policy. They didn't BY A SLIM margin due to Kenneth Lay's interference at the FERC throwing his weight around.

Uneducated posts like this just piss me off.

There is an analogy to made between Davis and FDR. Like FDR, Davis is being taken out by fascists only there is no military apparatus that can protect him from the character assassination being waged on him by the right and now thanks to posters like yourself and Camejo fans, the left.

[ieoeja]

7. But Davis isn't President

Enron is not in California. Davis asked President Bush to intervene, and he refused. Davis asked John Ashcroft to investigate, and he refused. Davis brought charges against Enron himself, and Ashcroft's DOJ got a federal court to toss it out on the grounds that the state's case interfered with the fed's and that the fed took priority despite the fact that the fed was (and is) not even investigating or pressing charges.

The President of the United States has a heck of a lot more power than the Governor of California, and Bush has used every bit of that power to thwart Davis. Before the DOJ stepped in and got the state's case dismissed, the state had Enron by the testicles. Remember the memo released by Enron's lawyers in which Enron freely admitted that they gamed the system illegally? But when the US government dismisses the case, there just isn't anything left for the Governor to do (in the short run; he did initiate the building of new state-owned power plants to wean California off the power companies' teats).